In the mill yards are stacks and stacks of house planks that the great saws have sliced up with an uncanny ease and speed, stacks of square shingles for roofs and miles of squared beams. We passed not a few but a multitude of these "booms" and mills, and our minds began to grasp the vastness of this natural and national industry. And yet it is not in the main a whole-time industry. For a large section of its workers it is a side line, an occupation for days that would otherwise be idle. It is the winter work of farmers, who, forced to cease their own labours owing to the deep snow and the frosts, turn to lumbering to keep them busy until the thaw sets in. That fact helps the mind to realize the potentialities of Canada. Here is a business as big as coal mining that is largely the fruit of work in days when there is little else to do. We saw this industry at a time when the streams were congested and the mills inactive. It was the summer season, but, more than that, the lack of transport, owing to the sinking, or the surrender by Canada for war purposes, of so much ship space, was having its effect on the lumber trade. The market, even as far as Britain, was in urgent need of timber, and the timber was ready for the market; but the exigencies, or, as some Canadians were inclined to argue, the muddle of shipping conditions, were holding up this, as well as many other of the Dominion industries. In this sporting country there are many likely looking streams for fishermen, as there are likely looking forests for game. At New Castle we touched the Miramichi, which has the reputation of being the finest salmon-fishing river in New Brunswick; the Nepisiquit, the mouth of which we skirted at Bathurst, is also a great centre for fishermen, and, indeed, the whole of this country about the shores of the great Baie de Chaleur--that immense thrust made by the Gulf of St. Lawrence between the provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec--is a paradise for holiday-makers and sportsmen, who, besides their fishing, get excellent shooting at brant, geese, duck, and all kinds of game. The Canadian of the cities has his country cottage in this splendidly beautiful area, which he comes to for his recreation, and at other times leaves in charge of a local farmer, who fills his wood shed with fire logs from the forest in the summer, and his ice house with ice from the rivers in winter. III In this district, and long before we reached the Quebec border, we came to the country of the habitant farmer. As we stopped at sections to water or change engines, we saw that this was a land where man must be master of two tongues if he is to make himself understood. It is a land where we read on a shop window the legend: "J. Art Levesque. Barbier. Agent du Lowdnes Co. Habits sur commande." Here the habitant does business at La Banque Nationale, and takes his pleasure at the Exposition Provinciale, where his skill can win him Prix Populaires.